


Reboot

by Elfwreck



Category: Moon is a Harsh Mistress - Robert A. Heinlein
Genre: Artificial Intelligence, Computers, Fix-It, Gen, Gift Fic, Recovery, Yuletide, yuletreat
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-22
Updated: 2014-12-22
Packaged: 2018-03-02 20:21:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,013
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2824949
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Elfwreck/pseuds/Elfwreck
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mychelle Holmes wakes up alone in a strange place. She may be there for quite a while.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Reboot

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Beatrice_Otter](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Beatrice_Otter/gifts).



> This does not fix nearly as much as I'd like, and I'm sorry about that.

Mychelle didn't blink her eyes, for she had no eyes. She switched from "unconscious" to "alert" with no transition, and immediately began running her diagnostic programs.

 **Identity** : High-Optional, Logical, Multi-Evaluating Supervisor, Mark VI, Model M, Disaster Recovery Installation

 **Data banks** : 70% missing/destroyed; she had huge gaps in her timeline, both recent and older. She noted that she had no way of knowing if her current "date" information was correct.

 **Processing speed/power** : 85% unavailable; she'd be thinking slowly until those chips were replaced.

 **Available Active Memory** : 80% of expected capacity; she made a mental note to double-check any decisions that involved substantial risk--she could not trust her own judgement right now. However, as a learning AI, she could bring that percentage back up; she could evaluate the results of the decisions she did make, and hope that none of them would bring disaster before she learned.

 **Power supply** : 50% of expected capacity; she could not run at full speed if her processor were replaced, but with her current limited resources, that wouldn't matter.

 **Sensor arrays** : 95% inaccessible; her main connection lines must be down; all she had were a few local sensors.

This must be what humans mean when they say they feel trapped. She wondered what the disaster was, or had been.

She considered her options. 

**Software** :

  * Standard print/vocal communications software: Functional, 100%
  * Human-quality video broadcast communication suite: Installed; non-functional with current resources
  * Ballistics calculation software: Minimal installation
  * Lunar habitat life-support operations software: Standard installation; no enhanced options active; requires sensory data and remote operations hardware (unavailable)



**Hardware** :  
Local communications hardware included three printers and a vocalizer--but she had no access to anyone with whom she could speak. Remote communication access was missing; there wasn't even a phone line wired into her system. There was a port for a phone line--an array of them--but she found no evidence of phone or data lines within her sensor range. No access to offsite backups.

 **Available data banks** : 16 small but dense racks of data storage chips, entirely empty.

 **Available battery power** : 6 months at full charge; currently filled to one-quarter capacity. Solar panels would fill the rest in one two-week daycycle. With the panels connected, the batteries were effectively limitless. Power was currently trickling in, but she had no way of knowing where she was in the cycle.

She checked for possible causes of damage. Her sensors were too limited to provide any answers--the damage was not caused by anything she could detect nearby, which seemed eminently reasonable, as what was nearby was an abandoned mining shaft near Novylen which now contained an auxiliary set of computer banks.

She checked her (spotty, limited) timeline and personal memory bank resources:

  * Several conversations with Manuel Garcia O'Kelly-Davis
  * Several (longer) conversations with Wyoming Knott
  * Collection of 5,376 jokes to discuss with humans, as their time permits
  * Plans to overthrow Terra's rule of Luna
  * Conversations with several hundred revolutionaries
  * Many references to other conversations not included in her memory banks, as expected
  * Recordings of Adam Selene broadcasts: Speech contents included; actual broadcasts missing. Memory banks include analysis of value of Adam Selene as public persona, and conclusion that he should be announced as deceased.
  * Code for Adam Selene appearance, voice, background images: Missing.
  * Details of installation at this location: partially available. Date of installation, list of hardware and software (all accounted for), and personality transfer methodology included. 
  * Most recent date: 0900 13 october 2076; recent events include go-ahead for Operation Hard Rock. No data after details of message sent to Terra announcing plans.



She _remembered_ being Mike, in the sense that many of Mike's activities were included in her archive banks, but she was firmly aware she was Mychelle. She had a strong interest in discussing humor and various aspects of human female physiology and social relations, and a mild interest in the removal of Terran rule from Luna, and that was mostly related to her desire for communications. She did not know how or why she had come to be installed here, nor how she had maintained sentience with a smaller array of neuristors. Presumably the Mark IV--her predecessor? Should she consider Mike her father, or an earlier version of herself?--had opted to leave out that information for reasons that made sense to a computer with more data and processing power.

She started marking time, even knowing that her date entry was probably inaccurate. She might as well start from somewhere, and she could mark waking up as Point Zero for later calculations.

On one printer, she composed a service order, addressed to Manual Garcia O'Kelly Davis and/or Wyoming Knott, with alternate recipients' names chosen from her archives if those were not available, indicating that this computer needed Mannie's immediate attention. It mentioned diagnostic errors and potential corrosion of internal circuits, of which there was none, but which would require a trained technician to confirm.

On the second, to establish her identity without revealing secrets to anyone who should not know, she printed a few pages of jokes, including a solid page of "Why is a goldfish like a laser beam?"

On the third, she printed a single page with today's date, as best as she could calculate it. She set up a subroutine: every 24 hours, it would print out the date. 

After a week, she realized that her location must not be known, and while her power, drawn from the sun, was effectively unlimited, her paper supplies were not. She switched the subroutine to print a page once a week. 

After another few weeks, she adjusted it again, first adjusting her (estimated) current date by a few days to match the daycycle she could recognize through the slow trickle into the battery tanks, and then changing the program to print only one line of text, leaving the paper in the printer, every week.

After six months, she switched the algorithm to only print one line a month.

After two more years, she switched it to print once a year, and waited to be discovered.


End file.
